Debunking the Social Media Myth: Life Insurance and the COVID-19 Vaccine

Currently circulating the World Wide Web are an abundance of myths regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. Readers may have come across articles claiming that a COVID-19 vaccination will render your life insurance policy invalid, or even worse, claims that death within one year of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine is a reason for a life insurance company to deny payment of death benefits. This simply is not true. As Connie O’Connell, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Council of Life Insurers states, “Life insurance policies clearly spell out what might cause your insurer to deny a benefit. Receiving a COVID-19 vaccine is not one of them.”

Life insurance policies are a contract between you, as the insured, and a life insurance company, as your insurer. Any existing policy that has already been issued, whether it was six months ago, five years ago, or 25 years ago, does not allow for new exclusions to be added, including exclusions regarding COVID-19. All exclusions are limited by state law. This means any exclusion is not issued at the discretion of an insurance company. So even if an insurance company wanted to, they couldn’t add a COVID-19 exclusion to your in-force policy without approval. This isn’t to say that insurance companies won’t lobby state insurance commissioners to add COVID-19 exclusions someday in the future, however, rest assured that any new exclusions can’t be added to already existing policies.

Individual and group life insurance coverage are important components of your employees' overall financial plans. Please contact your insurance consultant for more information.